Stephen Daly

Professor

Stephen joined the School in 1981 and has been a Senior Lecturer since 1998 and Associate Professor of Petrology since 2006. He was Head of School from September 2011 to September 2015 and was appointed Head of Subject (Geology) in November 2015. He is Director of the National Centre for Isotope Geochemistry at UCD. He is a Subject Editor of the Journal of the Geological Society, London and previously served as an Advisory Editor for 10 years until December 2016. He leads the UCD Geochronology, Petrology and Isotope Geochemistry research group. His research interests include the origin and tectonic history of the lower crust, geochemical aspects of geothermal energy and the application of isotope geochemical methods to sedimentary provenance, granite petrogenesis, ore genesis and mantle evolution. Geology aside he likes food, theatre, supporting Leinster and Irish rugby and staying out of the rain.

Willmot Noller, N.M., Daly, J.S. and the IRETHERM team (2014) Radiogenic heat production rates in Ireland's exposed bedrock: a proxy for determining heat production at depth Irish Geological Research Meeting [Details]

Fritschle, T. and Daly, J.S. (2013) Geochemical characterisation of granites from the Iapetus Suture Zone in Ireland and the Isle of Man - implications for their geothermal potential Irish Geological Research Meeting Derry, [Details]

Research Interests

Teaching Philosophy

I am passionately committed to high quality teaching, informed by my research and professional experience - teaching is an essential part of academic life. Geology teaching should involve as much field-based problem solving as possible. "Learn the essential facts and work out the rest from first principles"

Enhancement of Teaching

Geology is a practical subject and students gain hands-on experience in the field in front of outcrops, in the coreshed, on the petrological micrscope, in other laboratory settings (isotope lab, SEM etc.). They are faced with
My peers regularly observe my teaching, because, not least for safety reasons, we normally have at least two members of staff present on field classes. In addition we teach in the field and in laboratory practical classes with graduate student assistants, who are recent graduates from the World's best universities (graduate students in UCD School of Geological Sciences represent 14 nationalities). They have experienced high quality teaching elswehere and are regularly asked to observe the reactions of the class, to ask the questions that students may be afraid to ask, to admit ignorance when they cannot answer questions themselves and to encourage students to think clearly and, as far as possible to find a solution to the problem in hand, working from first principles.

Review and Enhancement of Curriculum

It is difficult to generalise because module structure varies with the subject matter. Some modules are designed to teach basic principles and essential. Here it can be challenging to maintain students' enthusiasm and interest. It helps to ensure that students can see how basic facts, difficult concepts and dextrously-demanding skills can be applied, e.g., by pointing to research questions that can only be answered using such tools. Lack of student engagement is a major challenge - evidence shows that attendance at classes correlates positively with assessment grades. Off campus field-based modules (e.g., GEOL10030, which I designed and lead) combine "enforced" attendance with a group ethic that ensures efficient uptake of concepts, remarkably high levels of practical competence ¿ students make a geological map based on their own field observations after only four days in the field ¿ and consistently achieve high grades.
In GEOL 10030, assessment includes daily testing knowledge (¿the basics¿) using MCQ tests, testing competence by setting technical tasks and persuading students of the importance of accurate and reliable data collection by basing some tasks on primary observations and data that they have collected and recorded in their field notebooks on that day or at any time during the field class.
Overall, the best guide to the effectiveness of student learning is to test their skills in professional practice. After graduation, it is heartening to hear the comments of employers and graduate supervisors when they answer questions such as: Can our graduates think independently? Are they willing and able to make decisions based on incomplete information? When those decisions turn out to be wrong in the light of new data, do they respond well and keep the project on track?

Developing as a Teacher

I regularly contribute presentations to major internationasl conferences such as European Geosciences Union General Assembly and the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting at which, in addition to geoscience research sessions, there are excellent session on pedagogic methods. I also talk to my colleagues at UCD, in other Irish universities as well as those from overseas, many of whom are the authors of the standard textbooks in their field (and for some of which I have acted as reviewer). Occasionally my students have benefited through reading and commenting on chaoter drafts from textbooks, which have been offered for this purpose by their authors. Geoscientific disciplines deal with dynamic phenomena. Environmental change is our business so it rare to find a geoscientist teaching the same material year after year for very long. It is natural that we seek to keep up with and as far as possible drive the trends in our individual research fields and there is a constant interplay between research and teaching, and hence teaching materials and methods are in continual development (and, one hopes, improvement).

Innovation & Leadership

Main teaching and leadership innovations: (1) Use of new technology - live petrological microscope feeds for the teaching of Optical Mineralogy and Petrography, (2) Design, logistic planning and ground truthing new field-based classes and mapping training exercises, (3) Design and organisation of School research seminars for 30 years since 1981, (4) Laboratory visits and demonstration of analytical equipment in practical classes

Related Links

Latest Publication

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Evaluating the Antibacterial Properties of Polyacetylene and Glucosinolate Compounds with Further Idenitfication of their Presence within Various Carrot (Daucus carota) and Broccoli (Brassica oleracea) Cultivars using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with a Diode Array Detector and Ultra High-Performance Liquid Chromatorgraphy-Mass Spectrometry Analyses
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